Jacqueline Natla
Jacqueline Natla Jacqueline Natla is the primary antagonist of the entire Tomb Raider series. Natla was one of the members of the triumvirate ruling the lost continent of Atlantis. However, she was later condemned for her misuse of power and was imprisoned in a capsule by the other two rulers, Qualopec and Tihocan. After escaping from her prison in 1945 during a nuclear test in Los Alamos, New Mexico, she took on the name Jacqueline and founded her own company called Natla Technologies using her scientific expertise and cunning. In 1996 she hired adventurer Lara Croft to search for Qualopec's piece of the Atlantean Scion in his Tomb located in Peru. Shortly after finding the artifact, Lara was attacked by another adventurer Larson under orders by Natla. Knowing Natla had betrayed her, Lara went in search for the remaining two pieces in Greece and then Egypt. After obtaining the final piece, Lara was ambushed by Natla and her men. Stealing the now assembled artifact, Natla ordered Lara to be killed and left Egypt in her boat heading to Atlantis. It is inside the Great Pyramid of Atlantis that Natla's grand scheme is revealed: to use the Scion's powers to breed a new race of mutant creatures. Realising this, Lara made her best effort to destroy the Scion. Refusing to let her work be destroyed, Natla charged towards Lara sending them both falling into a deep abyss. While Lara managed to grab a ledge, Natla continued to plummet into the lava pit below. As Lara tries to escape the pyramid Natla confronts her a final time, revealing her true appearance. In the end, Lara defeated Natla and escaped the pyramid, leaving Natla inside when it exploded. Jacqueline Natla returns in Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a game inspired by the original Tomb Raider game, developed by Crystal Dynamics. Here she is voiced by Grey DeLisle.1 In Anniversary, her role remains the same. However, Natla is visually depicted as taller and as having a much skinnier body frame as well as sharp and almost alien-like facial features, unusually long hair, pale skin and long fingers with long, sharp nails. She also loses her Texan accent. In this game she also describes herself as immortal and sought to bring about the 'Seventh Age' though what this was remained ambiguous. In Tomb Raider: Legend, several crates containing the "Natla Industries" logo can be seen throughout the final level. Before the release of Tomb Raider: Underworld it was not known whether this was meant to imply Amanda Evert, the apparent owner of the crates, had some connection to Natla or if it was merely an easter egg. Jacqueline Natla returns in Tomb Raider: Underworld as a prisoner of Amanda Evert, held prisoner on Amanda's boat in a stasis capsule. Early in the game she tells Lara about Helheim and Avalon being one and the same and informs Lara that she needs Thor's relics to gain access. After visiting Jan Mayen Island to retrieve Thor's hammer, she sets off to the Andaman Sea on the coast of Thailand to find Amanda's ship again. Lara confronts and threatens to kill Natla, but is stopped when Natla explains that a ritual is also needed to open the gates of Helheim; a ritual that only Natla knows. Realising she has no choice if she wants to enter Helheim/Avalon, Lara then smashes the capsule open, allowing Natla to escape. After arriving at Avalon, Natla reveals that she was manipulating Lara to reach an ancient device called the Midgard Serpent to bring about the 'Seventh Age.' Lara manages to destroy the device and strike Natla with the thrown Thor's hammer, which causes an explosion that throws Natla into the eitr surrounding the mechanism as it collapses. In Lara's Shadow, shortly after the events of Underworld, Natla is found to be alive and having escaped from the eitr. Although appearing somewhat thrall-like, she retains her mind. The doppelgänger drags Natla to a machine which was used to create it. The doppelgänger is instructed to activate the machine, which it does. It is then given one final order: to kill Lara Croft, and to take its own life once it is finished. After being released from Natla's control by Lara, the doppelgänger destroys the machine, which causes Natla to be pinned down by the debris. Natla is last seen trapped in a rising pool of eitr, pleading for help as the doppelgänger looks on. In 2010 IGN ranked Jacqueline Natla 86th in "Top 100 Videogames Villans" saying than "Besides the usual powers that come with being an immortal demon of sorts, Jacqueline has the typical bad guy ability of being able to talk her way out of situations that would otherwise lead to her death". Anniversary Biography Jacqueline Natla is the owner and CEO of Natla Technologies, one of the world's largest electonics companies. She is the holder of several key computer hardware patents, and her research and devlopment is one of the industry's most secretive and prolific innovators. Little is known about Miss Natla's private life other than she never gives interviews and rarely makes public appearances. Colleagues and business rivals alike say she is intimidatingly intelligent and a demanding perfectionist. Original Biography Many millions of years ago an advanced humanoid civilisation visited the Earth and settled here. They were the Atlanteans, and they established a cultural base on a great continent stretching from America to Australia, which they called Atlantis. Atlantis was ruled by a triumvirate that consisted of two God-Kings and one God-Queen: The three rulers protected and used the knowledge of the Atlantean Scion - a device of unknown origin. Natla desired this power for herself, and launched an assault upon Tihocan and Qualopec. Her brother Qualopec was left paralyzed from the waist down, and a walking-frame device was constructed that allowed him to move around. Tihocan, Qualopec and the armies of Atlantis were able to put a stop to Natla's coup, and for her crimes she was imprisoned for all eternity. Doomed to live forever in stasis, unable to move. However, in the mid 20th Century, an explosion weakened Natla's prison and allowed her to escape. Over the next few decades she posed as a business woman. She became the owner and CEO of Natla Technologies - one of the world's largest electronics companies. She was the holder of several key computer hardware patents, and her research and development department was one of the industries most secretive and prolific innovators. Little was known about her private life during these years, other than she never gave interviews and rarely made public appearances. Colleagues and business rivals alike said she was an intimidatingly intelligent and demanding perfectionist. Race Part of the Atlantean race, Natla is seemingly able to change her form at will. It would appear that the default Atlantean form is human-like, but it is unknown whether the other two members of the Triumvirate possess Natla's shape-shifting ability. Natla can assume a Demonic form, which usually happens after she is harmed. Her skin adopts a deep red scale-like quality, and winged unfold from her shoulders. Her skull drastically changes shape, displaying a row of horns that resemble a crown upon her head. Natla is also immortal. TR1 versus TRA In TR1 Natla is interested in genetic experiments. She tells Lara that the human race has become decadent, like the Atlanteans before them. She wants to force a rapid evolutionary change in humanity by unleashing her creations upon the world in order to ensure that only the "strong" survive. She wants to see what sort of twisted perfection will result from such an experiment. She has no regard for the moral consequences and simply explains her plan as it is to Lara, discussing it on a purely intellectual level. In TRA Natla is given a more mystical air with an extremely feminine demeanor, emphasized by her fantasy-style ceremonial robes that she wears later on in the game, and how she was frozen in magical red crystals by Tihocan rather than the cryogenics tube from TR1. She is interested in the Seventh Age and the Wheels of Kathar, whatever the latter may be. (Tomb Raider Underworld only explained the Seventh Age, which turned out to be Ragnarrök.) She makes no reference at all to any of the experiments that had been discussed in TR1. Instead, she tries to overcome Lara's moral objections to killing and she attempts to convince Lara to join her as a ruler of Atlantis because it takes three to rule (she does not mention who the third person is meant to be, but some think it may have been Amanda Evert, though she wasn't mentioned at all in the game). Overall, TR1 presented the rulers of Atlantis with a more traditional science-fiction style (robotic appearances, cryogenics, genetics, evolution, etc.) while TRA presented them with a more traditional fantasy style (more human appearance, magical crystals, ceremonial robes, the Seventh Age, etc.) Tomb Raider Underworld Natla is first seen in the Mediterranean Sea level, on Amanda's container ship the Megaera, when Lara overhears a conversation she and Amanda are having. After Amanda leaves, Lara confronts her old enemy, who is revealed to be held captive by Amanda. Natla informs Lara that the dais found by her and her mother was actually part of a travel network. She also reveals that Lara's mother is in Helheim and Lara's father was looking in the wrong place. Natla's containment cage is suddenly unlocked, and she has just enough time to tell Lara that Thor's hammer is needed to enter Helheim, adding that Coastal Thailand is the key to finding it. She is then carried out of the ship and is not seen again until the Andaman Sea level. When Lara visits her, she tells her that having Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Thor's belt and Thor's Gauntlets aren't enough - and that she also needs to know Odin's Ritual in order to ender Helheim. Lara breaks her free, and as she flys away, Natla gives her the co-ordinates to Helheim, at a point in the Arctic Sea. After Lara discovers the fate of her mother Amelia, Natla arrives and torments her, saying that she killed Lara's father, Richard. A furious Lara is about to strike Natla with Mjolnir, when Lara's Doppelganger stops her. Natla manages to escape once again, leaving Lara to die. When Lara reconfronts her, Natla informs her of her plan. She intends to use the giant Jőrmungandr_Mechanism to split open the tectonic ridges on the Earth's crust, and cause global cataclysms. Natla activates the mechanism but Lara uses Mjolnir to disable it. Finally, Natla is allegedly killed when Lara strikes a fatal blow to the head with Thor's Hammer, sending her screaming into a gigantic whirlpool of Eitr. Natla once again returns in the Underworld DLC Lara's Shadow. It takes place after Natla is struck down by Thor's Hammer. She is discovered still alive by the Doppelganger, who finds her next to the dais Lara and Amanda used to return to Nepal. Her appearance has changed due to landing in the eitr and she now looks like a thrall. Natla orders the Doppelganger to take her to her 'birthplace', which is home to a device that will help Natla replenish herself. Natla then gives out her final orders to kill Lara Croft. Whilst the Doppelganger is on her mission, Natla is inside the device that will revive her, when suddenly it begins to malfunction and is destroyed. Natla is stuck under the debris of the device and is suddenly drowned in rising eitr, whilst the Doppelganger refuses to help and watches her suffer. 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